Joe Lieberman is being vetted as a Vice Presidential running mate for John McCain, and it seems to be an option that McCain is seriously considering.
Noted Duran Duran scholar Kathryn Jean Lopez says that Rush Limbaugh no likey:
If John McCain picks Joe Lieberman as his running mate, he would "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory," as radio talk-show king Rush Limbaugh put it in an e-mail last night.
Obviously, I have an elaborate nightmare where Joe Lieberman gets the VP nod, McCain wins, then dies -- and we're looking at a President Lieberman. At which point I and a host of others bloggers who supported Ned Lamont wind up in Guantanamo Bay.
Now I may just be engaging in extraordinary cynicism here. But over the years, I've watched Arlen Specter set himself up as conscience of the Senate and rail against the administration's abuse of executive powers, at which point everyone invests him with the moral authority to adjudicate the situation and then he lets 'em off the hook. And I worry that Kathryn Jean and the Sacred Sperm Patrol are being likewise suckered.
Because despite railing against Lieberman on his Friday show, I have a feeling Rush can be swayed:
[Lieberman's] really gutsy, I think, because he's bucking his own party, he's standing up to his own party, standing up to Jack Murtha, standing up to the media, standing up to all the left out there and basically giving them the facts, and giving them reason and logic, and they don't want to hear it because they're invested in defeat. Lieberman is talking victory and these people don't connect with that. It's not in their lexicon.
Limbaugh also said that if the McCain was the nominee, it would "destroy the GOP," so we know that these things aren't set in stone.
Of course, Joe made NARAL and Planned Parenthood look like putzes last week by saying that he was "wrong" and Alito is a great judge, so it may not be a simple case of Rush jujitsu -- Holy Joe may be getting ready to meet him half way and see the light on choice. His past antics include telling rape victims to take a "short ride" to another hospital that provides emergency contraception if a Catholic hospital receiving public funds decides they don't want to offer it, so he's obviously willing to go all wobbly on choice when it suits him.
McCain announces his VP choice in Ohio the day after Obama's Invesco speech. My showbiz gene says he announces that his choice is Lieberman, the media goes bananas over the narrative of Joe being the Democratic candidate in 2000 and the Republican choice in 2008, and just as Obama puts the gloves on, McCain steals his bipartisan thunder. And more importantly, his convention bounce.
Yes he needs the fundies, but John McCain is a media creature and the temptation for all that hot monkey press love is just too juicy.
I sure hope this is just my dark thoughts getting the best of me.
Because I do not look good in orange.
Jane Hamsher blogs at firedoglake.com